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Vatnik Soup

About Ukraine and the war

Background information about Ukraine, Russia, and Russia’s centuries-old war on Ukraine.



map of Ukraine with Crimea and national colors

How to help

Spellings

WrongCorrectExplanation
The UkraineUkraine“It’s ‘Ukraine,’ not ‘the Ukraine’ – here’s why”
KievKyiv“Transliterations based on Russian names became common practice because of aggressive Russification policies from the Russian Imperial and later Soviet governments.”
ZelenskyZelenskyy
DonbassDonbas
OdessaOdesa

Russia’s war on Ukraine

Lectures & documentaries

Documents and essential articles

Information sources

Books

Russian disinformation operations, history books needed to learn the facts they lie about, etc.

  • Martin Amis, Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million
  • Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the the Third World - Newly Revealed Secrets from the Mitrokhin Archive
  • Christopher Andrew, The Sword And The Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive And The Secret History Of The KGB
  • Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56
  • Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps
  • Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine
  • Jessikka Aro, Putin’s Trolls: On the Frontlines of Russia’s Information War Against the World
  • Catherine Belton, Putin’s People
  • Bill Browder, Red Notice: A True Story of Corruption, Murder and One Man’s Fight for Justice
  • Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
  • Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties
  • Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
  • Brian Crozier, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire
  • Astolphe De Custine, Letters from Russia
  • François Furet, The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century
  • Mark Galeotti, The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia
  • Keir Giles, Russia’s War on Everybody: And What it Means for You
  • Luke Harding, Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem, and Russia’s Remaking of the West
  • Luke Harding, Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival
  • Hergé, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
  • Yaroslav Hrytsak, Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation
  • Ian Ona Johnson, Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War
  • Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
  • Stephen Kotkin, Stalin Vol. II: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941
  • Stephen Kotkin, Stalin Vol. I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
  • Matthew Kroenig, The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the U.S. and China
  • Alexander Litvinenko, Blowing up Russia (The Book that Got Litvinenko Murdered)
  • Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West’s Greatest Intelligence Disaster
  • Edward Lucas, Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West
  • Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces both Russia and the West
  • Martin Malia, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991
  • Sean McMeekin, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II
  • Ben Mezrich, Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs and the Greatest Wealth in History
  • Richard Overy, Why The Allies Won
  • Richard Overy, Russia’s War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945
  • Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia
  • Ion Mihai Pacepa, Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism
  • Ion Mihai Pacepa, Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus’ Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption
  • Alan Philps, The Red Hotel: Moscow 1941, the Metropol Hotel, and the Untold Story of Stalin’s Propaganda War
  • Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime
  • Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution
  • Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime
  • Serhii Plokhy, The Russo-Ukrainian War
  • Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
  • Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing is True but Everything is Possible
  • Darth Putin, The Darth Putin Guide to Being a Master Strategist: 13 Rules on How to Think, Act, Dress & Date Like a Master Strategist
  • Darth Putin, How to Tankie: The Anti Imperialist's Guide to the Modern World
  • Marlene Laruelle, Jean Radvanyi, Russia: Great Power, Weakened State
  • Jean François Revel, How Democracies Perish
  • Jean François Revel, Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era
  • Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War
  • Peter Schweizer, Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism
  • Anton Shekhovtsov, Russia and the Western Far Right
  • Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America
  • Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning
  • Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands
  • Benjamin Weiser, A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country
  • Mikhail Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin
  • Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression